The Tragedy of Macbeth Act II Notes Critical Comment—Murdering Sleep  The critic Mark Van Doren points out that noting could be more horrible than Macbeth’s act of murdering sleep, for in Shakespeare’s plays, sleep “is ever the privilege of the good and the reward of the innocent. If it has been put to death, there is not goodness left. One of the witches knows how to torture sailors by keeping sleep from them, but only Macbeth can murder sleep itself.” The loss of sleep is the loss of hope; Macbeth’s world is beginning to disintegrate.

Historical Connections—Gunpowder Plot of 1605  This play would have held great interest for James I, who lived through the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in November 1605. Some critics believe that the porter’s speech is filled with references to the Jesuit priest Father Henry Garnett, who was implicated in the plot and hanged as a traitor. Garnett used the assumed name “Farmer” and defended equivocation as just.  In his book Witches & Jesuits, historian Gary Wills outlines the basic facts of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. This plot greatly shocked Protestants of the time. “A cell of papists—the ‘enemy within’ of that time, directed from Rome by skulking Jesuits—had trundled keg after keg of gunpowder into a vault under Parliament. A munitions expert named Guy Fawkes was discovered with the detonating materials, read to ignite the fuse (train) when the King was addressing his Parliament, in presence of the Prince his heir and all leading members of his court. The Parliament—all the Lord’s spiritual and Temporal, the leading justices, and members of Commons—would be consumed in a particularly horrible way.”

Elements of Literature—Theme  Lennox reports an instance of nature mirroring unnatural events in society. Although such theories are rejected today, Elizabethans firmly believed that when people committed horrible acts, darkness, storms, earthquakes, and unnatural occurrences, such as deformed births, followed.  The Elizabethans thought the universe extended in a great chain beginning with God and extending down to the lowliest insects and worms. Everything in this chain had a place, reflecting a natural order. Harmony in Heaven mirrored harmony in natural world, the political world, and the social world. When this order was disrupted, the structure of the universe broke down. Audiences, therefore, were probably not surprised when Duncan’s killing led to natural disturbances.

Historical Connections—Scottish Kings  Scottish kinds were crowned on the Stone of Destiny—supposedly Jacob’s pillow, as mentioned in Genesis 28: 10-13. This stone was stolen and taken to Westminster Abbey by King Edward the Confessor in 1296.